Actor Finds Tons Of New Fans Who Didn't Even Know They Knew Him: Go Talk To People On Reddit

from the connecting-with-fans dept

Wes sends in a very cool example of someone figuring out a unique way to connect with fans (and giving them some reasons to buy). Character actor, Stephen Tobolowsky, has appeared in a ton of movies and TV shows and many people probably recognize him, but have no idea who he is. For example, he played Ned Ryerson, the insurance salesman in Groundhog Day. Anyway, he's writing short fiction stories and figured he might as well play up his "who is that guy?" style of fame on Reddit and put up an "ask me anything" (AMA) post at Reddit that also linked to his works on Amazon (which he's also offering cheaply at $1.99 a pop). And then, of course, he stuck around and answered a bunch of questions. It's simple, yes, but it's a great example of someone connecting with fans while including a neat little reason to buy as well.

Speaking of Amazon Electric publishing...

He also does a very good podcast where he tells similar stories about his life and the movie industry at www.tobolowskyfiles.com with David Chen from the /filmcast.

I have not yet gotten around to reading Cautionary Tales, but if it is anything like that podcast, it isn't fiction (he claims in the podcast one of the rules for writing his stories is that they must be completely true).

Re: Speaking of Amazon Electric publishing...

Stay tuned. One is, on Lulu, but I'm likely going to have at least one new one independently published on Amazon/iTunes while another is currently being reviewed in full by an agency (w/a promise for a decision by mid-April).

On the other hand, let's not kill the thread with talk of my literary awesomeness....